Shipping Industry News

WASDE - 2025-05-12

Trade flows – including ecommerce – are expected to restart on the transpacific after the initial new tariff agreement between the US and China. Talks over the weekend resulted in a huge reduction in tariffs – for 90 days.

A thawing of U.S.-China trade tensions is good news for soybean meal futures.

Russia and China are looking to further expand their cooperation in Arctic shipping and energy projects, President Putin confirmed during a meeting with Chinese leader Xi in Moscow.

The US and China will temporarily lower tariffs on each other’s products in a dramatic ratcheting down of trade tensions that buys the world’s two largest economies three months to work toward a broader agreement.

Soybeans are rallying early on Monday, as contracts are up 16 to 20 cents. Bulls were gaining ground ahead of the weekend meeting with the US and China, as contracts were up 5 to 8 cents. July slipped back 6 ¼ cents on the week, with November unchanged. Friday’s preliminary...

Wheat futures continue to trade with losses early on Monday morning. The wheat market failed to join in on the corn and bean strength on Friday, with contracts falling lower. Chicago SRW futures posted Friday losses of 7 to 8 cents on the day, as July was down 21 ¼...

Corn futures are showing some buying early on Monday morning, up 2 to 4 cents. The corn market finished off the week of losses with bears taking some money off the table. Contracts were up 2 to 4 cents across most months, with July falling 19 ¼ cents (4.10%) last...

Dubai-based DP World, a major international logistics company, has announced the launch of a Free Trade Zone in the Dominican Republic. A $760m investment will expand capacity at the Port of Caucedo from 2.5m TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) to 3.1m. The Free Trade Zone will expand onto 225 hectars of thus-far undeveloped land.

Finland’s premier icebreaker designer, Aker Arctic, has been awarded a contract to develop a new state-of-the-art mid-size icebreaker. The effort is part of a major fleet renewal program to ready Finland's icebreaking fleet for the changing requirements in the Baltic Sea. The country is also part of the ICE Pact with Finnish yards looking to construct icebreakers for Canada and the U.S.

The United States and China have agreed a deal to temporarily slash reciprocal tariffs as the world's two biggest economies seek to end a damaging trade war that has stoked fears of recession and set financial markets on edge.

Traders have rebranded more than $1 billion of Venezuelan oil shipments to China as Brazilian crude over the past year, according to two tanker tracking firms, company documents and four traders, helping buyers to cut logistics costs and circumvent U.S. sanctions.